Equality of marriage and love

Mark Hamill

Nicolas Cage wrote: »

Actually, he was raised by one man (Qui-Gon dies in Episode 1, remember) and then blew up a planet :pac:.

PopePalpatine

It was actually Grand Moff Tarkin who ordered Alderaan's destruction. [/pedant]

Penn

PopePalpatine wrote: »

It was actually Grand Moff Tarkin who ordered Alderaan's destruction. [/pedant]

If they're looking for a scapegoat then, they're looking in Alderaan places.

YYYEEEEEAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :cool:

wp_rathead

JaseBelleVie

I give you Bruce Wayne:

MrPudding

lazygal wrote: »

I nearly want to get gay married now, so I can hire Brentwood Photography.

Call them. They do things other than gay weddings... Here's an idea, get them round to photograph your kids being taken away after they have been forcibly gaydopted. At least you will have some nice pictures to remember them by.

MrP

The Black Oil

You can't be from Iran and have gay friends.

A leading Iranian actor has apologised after coming under pressure over a tweet he posted in support of a historic US supreme court ruling on gay marriage.

Bahram Radan, who is known as the Iranian Brad Pitt, created controversy in the country when his tweet hailed a verdict last week which made same-sex marriage a legal right across the entirety of the US. Homosexuality remains a taboo subject inside the Islamic republic and is punishable by death.

“The US supreme court’s ruling that same-sex marriage is legal was historic, perhaps on the scale of the end of slavery ... from Lincoln to Obama,” the award-winning actor tweeted in Persian at the weekend.

But within a few hours, after many users bombarded him with homophobic abuse and hardline media criticised him, Radan deleted the tweet.

Guardian

Imagine if he tried to work on an Iranian Father Ted...

Not a NSA agent

The Black Oil wrote: »

You can't be from Iran and have gay friends.



Imagine if he tried to work on an Iranian Father Ted...

Im sure #wearethe38% will be along shortly to defend him from group think and demand he has representation.

paleoperson

I find the pro-gay marriage people lack any sort of intelligence or even sometimes common sense. Very weak arguments.

What I find particularly disturbing are the people who claim they couldn't even understand the anti gay marriage arguments. I feel like if you can't even understand the discussion you shouldn't be allowed to vote.

Pherekydes

paleoperson wrote: »

I find the pro-gay marriage people lack any sort of intelligence or even sometimes common sense. Very weak arguments.

What I find particularly disturbing are the people who claim they couldn't even understand the anti gay marriage arguments. I feel like if you can't even understand the discussion you shouldn't be allowed to vote.

We have a live one here. Good to jump in with some great arguments with the referendum coming right up.

robindch

A much-persecuted group - represented by two white girls and four guys (two white, one indian and one black) - have chosen, bravely, to come out and appeal for society's understanding of their innate, unalterable condition. In fact, the two girls feel so bad about how they're being treated, that they manage have a little bit of a cry:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6PPk2NOQXs

Delirium

paleoperson wrote: »

I find the pro-gay marriage people lack any sort of intelligence or even sometimes common sense. Very weak arguments.

What I find particularly disturbing are the people who claim they couldn't even understand the anti gay marriage arguments. I feel like if you can't even understand the discussion you shouldn't be allowed to vote.

Agreed. Your ad-homs are very weak arguments :P

Cabaal

paleoperson wrote: »

I find the pro-gay marriage people lack any sort of intelligence or even sometimes common sense. Very weak arguments.

.

It's just called marriage, you don't call it gay marriage or straight marriage. It's just called marriage regardless of what sex the couple are.

The people have spoken, deal with it

robindch

Two guys go for a walk in Moscow.

Can't vouch for the honesty of the piece or how long they spent walking to receive this much negative feedback, but the reactions seem unprompted to me, as well as being normal for the country:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgm3lb9JUU0

Smiley92a

robindch wrote: »

A much-persecuted group - represented by two white girls and four guys (two white, one indian and one black) - have chosen, bravely, to come out and appeal for society's understanding of their innate, unalterable condition. In fact, the two girls feel so bad about how they're being treated, that they manage have a little bit of a cry:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6PPk2NOQXs

One of the top comments (was it one of you?)

This is disgusting. Treating yourselves as if you're victims because you believe gay marriage is wrong and everyone calls you out on it. Imagine if someone made the same exact video saying this **** about slavery or interracial marriage. You deserve no sympathy - you are not a victim here, except to ignorance. It is the ignorance of people like YOU that have made homosexual people the victims for many years. But as soon as they get a chance to stop being a victim, you try to flip the table? LOL, no. I don't think so. Get out of here with this noise.

You cannot say with all honesty that you support and love your homosexual friends if you feel that they shouldn't have the right to marry the person they love. Your bull**** talk makes no sense, unless you're saying you "love them" but want them to be straight? And if that's the case then you don't even deserve their friendship, tbh. -NicoNicoMikkun

:cool:

Cabaal

http://www.thejournal.ie/marriage-referendum-australia-documentary-paddy-mar-ref-2228234-Jul2015/

AN AUSTRALIAN DOCUMENTARY looking at the Irish Marriage Referendum has been getting big reaction.

In the programme, broadcast as part of the Foreign Correspondent series on the ABC News channel, correspondent Sally Sara travels across Ireland to gain an understanding of why what she describes as a ‘traditionally conservative country’ voted Yes.

The doc can be watched at
http://www.abc.net.au/foreign/content/2015/s4278098.htm

robindch

Lo, the high priests and the scribes have announced that they are now "hopeful" that they won't have to follow through on their threat to stop "carry(ing) out the civil element" of marriage in the event that the marriage equality referendum was passed:

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/news/church-backs-down-on-its-threat-to-boycott-civil-part-of-weddings-31403036.html

Indo wrote:

In the run-up to the vote, Catholic bishops warned that any change to the legal definition of marriage would mean that priests would be barred from carrying out this part of the ceremony. But it has now been confirmed that the clergy will continue to facilitate newly married couples, who in all cases must sign a state register to prove that they are married in the eyes of the law.

This is in sharp contrast to a pre-referendum submission by the bishops when they warned that the church "could no longer carry out the civil element" of marriage if the referendum was passed. If the bishops had gone ahead with their threat, it would have caused major logistical problems for the state authorities and alternative structures would have had to be set up for marriage registration.

It would have meant that the thousands of couples who get married in a catholic church each year would have had to go elsewhere to have their marriage legally recognised. However, a spokesman for the Catholic Church referred to a recent comment by Archbishop Eamon Martin, who conceded: "As far as I can see, the church would indeed like to continue solemnising marriages.

"We recognise that a lot of couples who come to our churches for marriage want to have that recognised also as a civil marriage and we're very appreciative of that." However, the archbishop also warned that the church "will take a look" at the details of the legislation now being finalised by the Government regarding same-sex marriage.

"We'll monitor the situation to see if it's possible for us to continue - and I'm hopeful that it will be possible," he added. Despite some ongoing confusion on the matter, it is understood the bishops have rowed back on their pre-referendum hardline stance. Fr Gerry O'Connor, from the Association of Catholic Priests, said it was always highly unlikely that the bishops would follow through with their "false threat". "It was an attempt to strengthen the 'No' vote," he said. [...]

Not a NSA agent

They would have been quite stupid to cut more people off. A lot of people wouldnt bother with the church part if they were already married.

SpaceTime

robindch wrote: »

Two guys go for a walk in Moscow.

Can't vouch for the honesty of the piece or how long they spent walking to receive this much negative feedback, but the reactions seem unprompted to me, as well as being normal for the country:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgm3lb9JUU0

From what I've heard from a gay Russian guy I know who emigrated to get away from that kind of stuff, it's very prevalent.

We got chatting at a work related conference on the continent because he was really curious about how the marriage referendum here was going to work out and had a notion that Ireland was as conservative as Russia !! (We have a terrible reputation on the continent for conservatism btw - mostly based on the 20th century banning of condoms, no divorce until recently, the dogmaticly Christian fundamentalist abortion laws etc etc)

He was beaten up on numerous occasions and he's not even very open about his sexuality - just based on lack of gf and rumours! He still has physical scars because of what happened never mind psychological ones.

He's now effectively exiled in Western Europe and was quite happy to take up citizenship elsewhere, literally cut all ties and never look back! Sad when someone's own birthplace causes them to have to turn their back on it permanently like that.

Russia is already causing itself a major brain drain because anyone who is liberal and doesn't want to live with that kind of atmosphere or who is gay or bi is getting out of there. It's driving out academics, politically active people, feminists and basically anyone who doesn't like the current regime or doesn't fit into it.

If you've high level skills, you'll get a visa anywhere so, they're losing of the people who might have made it a very much more pleasant and forward looking place and a lot of key people in the tech sector. Russia produced a lot of excellent engineers, especially in areas like aerospace who would be snapped up in Western Europe or the U.S.

Russia, due to this kind of crazy stuff and the quasi authoritarian state vibe and the Ukrainian thing coupled with falling oil prices and trade sanctions, is going to be circling the drain fairly soon.

Russia had (has) a lot of potential but it's opting to do really crazily self destructive things by pursuing these kinds of odd policies.

Hotblack Desiato

SpaceTime wrote: »

He's now effectively exiled in Western Europe and was quite happy to take up citizenship elsewhere, literally cut all ties and never look back! Sad when someone's own birthplace causes them to have to turn their back on it permanently like that.

It really isn't long since many Irish people had to do the same.
Some still only come out after going abroad and feeling free to explore their sexuality without someone who knows someone who knows someone finding out...

Russia had (has) a lot of potential but it's opting to do really crazily self destructive things by pursuing these kinds of odd policies.

"I find it tragic how badly misgoverned Russia has been for so long, literally back to Ivan the Terrible. Russia has so much human capital. If only it was governed properly, it could be a serious emerging market player like China. But instead it's one megalomaniac czar after another. Whether they be imperial, Soviet, or Putin, wrecking the economy for their own vanity and nationalist unwillingness to accommodate the west.
- Robert E. Kelly, as quoted in "Russia Between Empire and Modernity" (9 October 2014), by R.E. Kelly, Asian Security Blog: International Relations of Asia.

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Russia

SpaceTime

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

It really isn't long since many Irish people had to do the same.
Some still only come out after going abroad and feeling free to explore their sexuality without someone who knows someone who knows someone finding out...

There were big issues in a lot of countries in the relatively recent past, bear in mind that even California only began to stop persecuting gay people in the 1960s and only sort of.

The UK had some quite insane laws on the books well into the 60s too.

In in the 1950s they effectively caused the suicide of one of their greatest scientists and the guy who probably was instrumental in saving them from nazi occupation : code breaker and computer scientist, Alan Turing.

For anyone unfamiliar with the case: He was prosecuted in 1952 for "homosexual acts" and was forced by a court to take oestrogen injections (chemical castration) as an alternative to prison. The guy was an athlete who had run marathons, it even caused him to grow breasts. He committed suicide most likely as a direct result of how he was treated and ostracised. He was only posthumously pardoned in 2013.


Thatcher's Government then passed Section 28 of the Local Government act back in 1988

Provided that no local authority "shall not intentionally promote homosexuality or publish material with the intention of promoting homosexuality"

Only repealed in Scotland in 2000 and the rest of the UK in 2003 !

Quite a lot of places have moved a very large distance on gay rights over a relatively short time, Ireland was really just a little behind the times on it but not all that much and it caught up fairly dramatically quickly when it did.

As for people going abroad now because they want to be openly gay somewhere else, I really think that's more of a personal choice or issues with immediate family etc rather than an issue with Ireland in 2015. Attitudes have changed enormously.

The scary thing about Russia is that it's actually going backwards on these kinds of issues.

Brian Shanahan

SpaceTime wrote: »

the guy who probably was instrumental in saving them from nazi occupation : code breaker and computer scientist, Alan Turing.

In all honesty this is incorrect. I would gladly say that his was the biggest contribution to the war by a single Briton, but the UK was never in danger of invasion by Germany.

The closest the Nazis came to having a plan to invade was to bring a load of flat bottomed Rhine barges, half of whom would have been sunk by the wakes of the paltry destroyer escort available to the Wehrmacht and the other half sunk by the channel tides. And of course them lasting long enough to be sunk by Hitler's stupidity was dependant on the Home Fleet (the RN's strongest component) deciding to stay in port or feck off elsewhere, and not engage in an exercise of shooting fish in a barrel. An actual attempted invasion would have probably meant a Barbarossa where the USSR captured Berlin in '42 and not '45.

Hotblack Desiato

SpaceTime wrote: »

Quite a lot of places have moved a very large distance on gay rights over a relatively short time, Ireland was really just a little behind the times on it but not all that much and it caught up fairly dramatically quickly when it did.

A good 25 years behind the UK on decriminalisation though - not that either country enforced the law by the time it was repealed, but indicative of official attitudes. Ireland fought David Norris all the way and when he won in the European courts it still took several years for legislation to be changed.

The scary thing about Russia is that it's actually going backwards on these kinds of issues.

It's going backwards on every kind of issue, sadly.

Brian Shanahan wrote: »

but the UK was never in danger of invasion by Germany.

This was simulated in 1974 in a war game with senior officer WWII veterans from each side.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Sea_Lion_(wargame)

The attack and landings went reasonably well for the first 24 hours, although the Germans lost about 25% of their unseaworthy barges which were being used to ferry the forces across the channel. ... Naval engagements were indecisive at this stage as the Royal Navy was still assembling its main destroyer fleet to attack. The larger ships of the Home Fleet (including battleships, heavy cruisers and aircraft carriers) were not to be committed due to the risk of air attack. ... Over the next two days the Germans managed to advance a dozen or so miles inland ... However, the German advance halted once the British and Commonwealth forces were moved to fully engage in the battle. At this stage the Germans had few tanks and only light artillery. An increasing shortage of ammunition was slowly forcing them back towards the sea. ... At dawn on 24 September the second German landing, which was to include tanks and heavy artillery as well as supplies and men, was intercepted by the Royal Navy's destroyers and 65% of the barges were sunk. After this the German surrender was inevitable.

Going Strong

SpaceTime wrote: »

Thatcher's Government then passed Section 28 of the Local Government act back in 1988

Provided that no local authority "shall not intentionally promote homosexuality or publish material with the intention of promoting homosexuality"

Only repealed in Scotland in 2000 and the rest of the UK in 2003 !

And, given the current drip feed of revelations about child abuse amongst ministers and MPs, look at what appalling goings on the same government was covering up at the same time.

PopePalpatine

You'd wonder who or what would be next to feel the wrath of Putin and his Orthodox cronies - maybe abortion?

SpaceTime

Going Strong wrote: »

And, given the current drip feed of revelations about child abuse amongst ministers and MPs, look at what appalling goings on the same government was covering up at the same time.

It was a particularly odd period of recent history in Britain.

I know we were a lot more extreme in Ireland but, there was still a lot of taboo about any topic connected to sexuality which made cover ups of abuse very easy.

It's really only in the 2000s that you start to see a much more open attitude develop.

I honestly think the Internet has had a lot to do with finally blowing away the last vestiges of Victorian society.

Most liberal steps forward seem to be connected to technological shifts in democratised communication.

SpaceTime

Also my point on Turing wasn't to engage in a technical historical debate about rehashing WWII through war games!

The guy played a very important role in British intelligence gathering efforts by cracking codes and he played a rather fundamental role in the development of computers, but was treated like dirt because of his sexual orientation.

He also apparently came to the attention of the U.S. paranoia about commies which for some reason during the red scare / McCarthyism era, I can only imagine was basically gay bashing mentality, resulted in gay people being classified as being a security risk.

The deepening levels of cooperation between the UK and U.S. after WWII saw increasing pressure on Turing and others in the early 1950s and that removed him from many aspects of his work too.

All I'm saying is that most countries have at best bad and at worst horrific recent histories when it comes to how they treated gay people.

We've all mostly moved on with notable exceptions.

I honestly don't think the international bodies are doing nearly enough on LGBT rights though.

Although they're also quite happy to treat counties a that have horrific women's rights and other human rights records as normal, especially if they're oil, economically significant or have big armies.

Brian Shanahan

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Sea_Lion_(wargame)

Given they were crossing the Channel in September and in unseaworthy vessels, I'm assuming that wargame decided not to include sinkings from choppy weather. And it did assume the RN would not engage properly, something that wouldn't have happened in a real German invasion.

Remember, Overlord where they prepared specifically for the type of sea they were crossing and planned for years ahead, even going so far as to design an absolutely new type of troop carrier, was nearly called off due to bad weather and was in fact delayed from 04-06-1944 to 06-06. Hitler's cack-handed amateurish "plan" would have gone to the bottom of the drink before getting half way to Dover, the only Wehrmacht personnel arriving in England being the poor corpses who were taken there by the tide.

Hotblack Desiato

SpaceTime wrote: »

He also apparently came to the attention of the U.S. paranoia about commies which for some reason during the red scare / McCarthyism era, I can only imagine was basically gay bashing mentality, resulted in gay people being classified as being a security risk.

That was because of the possibility of blackmail by the KGB. (Of course heterosexuals could also be placed in a 'compromising position' but would need to be willing to enter an affair and/or drugged.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clandestine_HUMINT_asset_recruiting#Love.2C_honeypots.2C_and_recruitment

I honestly don't think the international bodies are doing nearly enough on LGBT rights though.

Although they're also quite happy to treat counties a that have horrific women's rights and other human rights records as normal, especially if they're oil, economically significant or have big armies.

Can't be upsetting the Muslims too much, now can we.

The Black Oil

https://twitter.com/LeanIago/status/626400576373411841

Wtf?